According to a study by the Agricultural Research Service, confinement

Question

According to a study by the Agricultural Research Service, confinement buildings must be adapted to animals,  rather than adapting animals  to buildings, if farmers want to breed their stock more successfully.

(A) rather than adapting animals

(B) instead of the adaptation of animals

(C) rather than animals to be adapted

(D) rather than animals

(E) instead of animals adapting

Agricultural Research - Volume 33, Issue 8 - Page 11

He SayS that buildings must be adapted to pigs and other liveStock,  rather than adapting animals to buildings , if farmers want to take full advantage of their genetic potential, including more efficiency in reproduction and lean-meat production.

daagh · Accepted Answer

According to a study by the Agricultural Research Service, confinement buildings must be adapted to animals,  rather than adapting animals  to buildings, if farmers want to breed their stock more successfully.

The meaning of the topic is that, when animals are waiting to deliver the young ones, all facilities such good ventilation, dry bedding, ample water, good walking space, privacy etc should be provided so that the offsprings are healthy. Don't put them in whatever is avaibale handily and make the pregnant animals suffer. This is basic animal husbandry. 
 
(A) rather than adapting animals ---  adapting is not parallel to adapted.

(B) instead of the adaptation of animals, ----  the adaptation is not parallel to adapted. 
 
(C) rather than animals to be adapted ---  'to be adapted to buildings' changes the meaning as "to be adapted" is substantially different from 'must be adapted"

(D) rather than animals --  correct choice, with the word adapted being elided here.

(E) instead of animals adapting ---  adapting is not parallel to adapted. Meaning also changes.

ENAFEX · Answer

X adapted to Y, rather than Y to X

Clear D

Swoosh617 · Answer

Yeah all the other answer choices violate the parallelism rule and can be eliminated

kraizada84 · Answer

good question .............!!!

hsbinfy · Answer

D

Rather than X to Y

X and Y need to be parallel.

Divyadisha · Answer

'rather than' is required to modify noun 'animals'

X must be adapted to Y, rather than Y (adapted to) X

Only D fulfills this condition

shonakshi · Answer

How will we decide which on to use between instead of and rather than ?

Balajikarthick1990 · Answer

Instead of - Generally used in the context of substitution (noun). "of" in instead of is a preposition...so it should be followed by a noun.

I like vanilla instead of strawberry

Rather than is used with verbs/nouns. generally GMAT doesn`t test on that split.

Thanks
Balaji

Konstantin1983 · Answer

Looks like the only difference between C and D is that C is more wordy, right?

chesstitans · Answer

yeah, this is a common a pattern in gmat, if there are 2 parallel things, the second one can be redundant.
For example, "rather than animals (must be adapted)".

teaserbae · Answer

daagh  can you please brief this question

Kali123 · Answer

Hi Daagh,

How do we know when to include the elided word and when not to?

REgards,

ChiranjeevSingh · Answer

Here's the   official explanation   provided by the GMAC for this question:

The given sentence cites a finding that improvement of agricultural stock breeding requires that buildings be adapted to animals, not animals to buildings. The given sentence is not well-formed; in following  adapted  with the verb form  adapting,  which does not fit with the verb form  must be  in the first portion of the construction using  rather than,  it fails to preserve a required parallelism in verb form. The phrase  rather than adapting  …  buildings  errs in suggesting  confinement buildings  as the implicit subject of  adapting .

Option A:  This answer choice fails for the reasons explained above.

Option B:  The phrase  the adaptation of  is nonparallel to  adapted . The wording confusingly suggests that  the adaptation of animals to buildings  is being presented as an alternative to  animals , or perhaps to  confinement buildings .

Option C:  The verbal form  to be adapted  is not appropriately parallel to  adapted  and does not fit with the verb form  must be  in the first portion of the construction using  rather than . The wording confusingly suggests that  animals to be adapted to buildings  is being presented as an alternative to  animals,  or perhaps to  confinement buildings.

Option D:  Correct. In this answer choice, the passive verb form  adapted  is implicit:  animals   to buildings.  This phrasing fits with the verb form  must be  in the first portion of the construction using  rather than.  So the parallelism with the earlier occurrence of  adapted  is preserved, and the sentence is coherent and grammatically correct.

Option E:  The preposition  instead of  could be used in place of  rather than,  but the parallelism requirement, noted for  rather than  would also apply to use of  instead of . The phrase  animals adapting to buildings  is illogically nonparallel to  buildings must be adapted to animals .

The correct answer is D.

Please note that I'm not the author of this explanation. I'm just posting it here since I believe it can help the community.

thangvietnam · Answer

According to a study by the Agricultural Research Service, confinement buildings must be adapted to animals,  rather than adapting animals  to buildings, if farmers want to breed their stock more successfully.

(A) rather than adapting animals

(B) instead of the adaptation of animals

(C) rather than animals to be adapted

(D) rather than animals

(E) instead of animals adapting

this is hard. we need to know "instead of " and "rather than" first.

"instead of" is a preposition, which stand before a noun. 
1st use
'instead of" connect 2 similar nouns. this use makes "instead of" look like a conjunction because it connect 2 similar things. but "instead of" is a preposition. 
I eat rice instead of noodle for my dinner.
2nd use
"Instead of' can stand before doing as a participle. participle is entity which can refer to the subject and modify the whole main clause
instead of learning english, i go out for change. (we dont need 'learning " to be parallel with 'go out" grammatically though they are parallel logically)

"rather than" is conjunction, which connect 2 similar things.
I learn english rather than french
i learn english rather than go out for change.

"rather than" can be used to connect 2 clauses. this use is rare. choice D presents this use

in choice D, "rather than" , still as conjunction, is used to connect 2 clauses. this use is rare because 2 whole clause are different, but not 2 nouns. we normally use "rather than" to say 2 nouns are different.

yesterday, I learned english in the dorm rather than my friend worked in the dorm.

both nouns and verb change , so, we use "rather than" before full clause.

in our choice D, the pattern is similar except the point that ellipsis comes. so , the second clause looks strange.

rather than animal to buildings
this means
rather than animal must be adapted to buildings.

now, we come back to other choices.
choice A. "adapting" must be parallel with any "doing" at the first clause because "rather than" is conjunction. we dont have any "doing", so, it is wrong.
choice B. "adaptation" stand after "instead of" as a preposition, so , (read above ), an entity must be parallel with 'adaptation'. we dont have that entity. it is wrong
choice C. "animal to be adapted" is still a noun phrase. we need another noun to be parallel with it. there is no such a noun. it is wrong.
choice E. "animal adapting" is still a noun. we need a noun to be parallel with it. there is no such a noun. it is wrong

thangvietnam · Answer

According to a study by the Agricultural Research Service, confinement buildings must be adapted to animals,  rather than adapting animals  to buildings, if farmers want to breed their stock more successfully.

(A) rather than adapting animals

(B) instead of the adaptation of animals

(C) rather than animals to be adapted

(D) rather than animals

(E) instead of animals adapting

this is hard. we need to know "instead of " and "rather than" first.

"rather than" is conjunction, which connect 2 similar things.
I learn english rather than french
i learn english rather than go out for change.

in choice D, "rather than" , still as conjunction, is used to connect 2 clauses. this use is rare because 2 whole clause are different, but not 2 nouns. we normally use "rather than" to say 2 nouns are different.

yesterday, I learned english in the dorm rather than my friend worked in the dorm.

both nouns and verb change , so, we use "rather than" before full clause.

the use of "rather than" in choice D means that "rather than" can be used before a clause. this is special use of "rather than" which we have to remember. this is purely grammatical point and not relevant to meaning problem. this question is not basic and is at 700 level

Basshead · Answer

According to a study by the Agricultural Research Service, confinement buildings must be adapted to animals,  rather than adapting animals  to buildings, if farmers want to breed their stock more successfully.

This question is testing parallelism.

(A) rather than  adapting  animals

-- adapted vs adapting. Not parallel.

(B) instead of the  adaptation  of animals

'adapted' vs 'adaption'. Not parallel.

(C) rather than animals to be  adapted

'must be adapted' vs 'to be adapted'. Not parallel.

(D)  rather than animals

-- Looks good. Confinement buildings must be adapted to animals, rather than animals to buildings. Makes sense.

(E) instead of animals  adapting

-- adapted vs adapting. Not parallel.

pk6969 · Answer

I didn't understand why A is wrong. must be adapted is also a verb form (adapt) and adapting is also used as verb, I think. or maybe its used as a gerund, I couldn't find. can someone please throw light on this???

KittyDoodles · Answer

Hi  pk6969

"adapting" here is an used as an adjective describing animal. It answers the question "what kind of animals?". The ones that are adapting.

Option A is not parallel to the clause "confinement buildings must be adapted to animals".

In Option D we have "confinement buildings must be adapted to animals, rather than animals (adapted) to buildings.

Thanks

gmatimothy · Answer

According to a study by the Agricultural Research Service, confinement

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

According to a study by the Agricultural Research Service, confinement

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615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

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